


bored as housewives

by silentwalrus



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky And Natasha Best Friends 5ever, Crossdressing, Gen, Lingerie, M/M, No sex whatsoever, Podfic Available, Shenanigans, Translation Available, blah blah insert how clothing has no gender here etc etc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 17:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11491272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentwalrus/pseuds/silentwalrus
Summary: Steve's on a mission; Bucky decides to try something new. What's the twenty-first century for if not so a guy can wear a little lingerie?





	bored as housewives

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Скучающие домохозяйки](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13371693) by [Tressa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tressa/pseuds/Tressa), [WTF_Marvel_Trash_Party_2018](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Marvel_Trash_Party_2018/pseuds/WTF_Marvel_Trash_Party_2018)



> Literally no sex in here at all, guys. It's mostly Bucky and Natasha being BFFs and comedy, because I'm me. You could theoretically see this as a future canon scene for any of my other stories, even ITHLYN. Enjoy!

It starts as a stray thought, passing not quite randomly through his head as he lolls around watching Natasha get ready. They’re in her Midtown apartment, the one with the most extensive wardrobe and makeup kit, and Bucky’s rolling around on her bed like a bored puppy while she does something that makes the smell of cooked hair waft out of the bathroom doorway. She’s got her outfit laid out on the portion of bed Bucky’s not allowed on and it mostly blends into her dark bedsheets but Bucky can see a lot of straps and buckles and other complicated architecture going on.

He picks at the lone incongruity: a scrap of lace, which turns out to be the thigh band of a stocking. A really  _ nice  _ stocking, with the lace making fancy patterns and the sheer black nylon flowing through his hand like dry water. Bucky fondles it curiously, enjoying the way the sensation and texture is so different between his metal and flesh hands. 

Liho returns from wherever he’s been and jumps up on the bed, just far away enough from Bucky’s lap to claim plausible deniability about any and all intentions to lodge there at some point in the near future. Bucky holds out the stocking to him; Liho sniffs at his fingers and rejects the offering. Bucky nods acceptingly and goes back to exploring Natasha’s getup, which includes a set of lingerie so comprehensive it could really be its own outfit.

He’s trying to figure out which part of the ornate garter belt faces up as Natasha leaves the bathroom and starts putting her bra and underwear on. “Say, d’you think these would fit me?” he asks and holds the stockings up, mostly just wondering aloud. 

She glances over.  _ “Not  _ those,” she says immediately, plucking them from his hand; she rummages in a drawer for a second and tosses him a different scrap of black. “Use these, they’re from a dollar store in Kentucky.” 

Bucky takes them, bemused. “Why were you in a dollar store in Kentucky?”

“Clint needed balloons.”

“Why did Clint need balloons?”

“Because he’d traded favors with an MP to get us on base and the guy wanted someone at his kid’s birthday party making balloon animals.” 

“That’s a… shockingly normal Clint story.”

“We spent the previous night slitting open mounted deer heads at the local taxidermist’s searching for hidden cocaine.” 

“Did you find any?”

“Yes, but it was all inside the mounted boar head. It’s why we needed the favor. We smuggled it on base dressed as Marines dressed as fake strippers looking to prank their sergeant.”

“Who was it really for?”

“The base commander. When they called reveille the next morning his aide found him facedown on the desk with his dick stuck in the boar’s mouth, covered in cocaine.”

“That’s more like it.” Bucky considers the little silky strips of fabric for a moment longer and then rolls over, unbuckling his belt. Might as well try, it’s not like he has anything else to do tonight. Liho flicks his tail and moves further up the bed, away from Bucky’s flailing and disdainful like he isn’t going to plant his ass on Bucky and render him immobile the minute he holds still for five seconds. Liho was a tiny kitten when Natasha got him but that was ages ago and now he’s eighteen pounds of overfed black tom. 

Bucky, now pantsless on the bed and peeling his socks off, considers the dollar store stockings. They’re noticeably cheaper, the fabric still sheer and smooth but staticky and somehow plastic. He looks over at Natasha: he missed her putting her own stockings on and she’s doing something arcane with the corset now. He sort of holds the stocking like a very long sock and considers it dubiously. “So I just… stick my foot in?”

“Uh huh,” Natasha says disinterestedly, checking her earrings in the mirror. 

Bucky sticks his foot in and promptly shreds the shit out of them. “Uh,” he says, staring at his leg. “I think I… broke them?”

Natasha sighs and looks over, then raises an eyebrow. “Wow, even I’ve never laddered a pair so bad. Let me see your - о боже, these  _ calluses.  _ Your skin is like  _ tree bark.” _

“I’ve been in cryo and combat boots for seventy years, leave me alone!” 

“It’s fine, you just need a pedicure.”

“What’s a pedicure?”

“Manicure for your feet.”

Bucky considers this. “So my… toenails? What’ll that do about my skin?”

“They do your skin too. They shave the calluses off and smooth and moisturize everything.”

“Ouch?”

“It doesn’t hurt, it’s all dead skin coming off and they’re professionals. I get mine done weekly, you can come with.” 

“I didn’t say I  _ want  _ to.” 

Natasha shrugs. “Suit yourself. But you aren’t ripping any more of mine, if you want stockings get your own.” 

“Fine,” Bucky agrees. 

-o-

A week later he’s in a Duane Reade in the asscrack of FiDi, two brands of stockings in either hand and his phone clamped between his shoulder and ear. “So what happens at a pedicure, exactly?”

“You soak your feet, your nails get trimmed, you get lotion and shit put on, you get your nails painted. Thirty, forty minutes, tops.” She’s driving; Bucky can hear the radio turned down low in her car. 

“That’s it?”

She sighs. “You sit in a big body chair, usually with massage electronics in it, and strangers touch you and put chemicals on your skin. There’s filing and scissors involved.” 

“O-kay,” Bucky says. “Any way I can do it myself?”

“You can, but it’ll take you a while,” Natasha says. 

“Can you show me?”

“Ugh, fine,” Natasha says, but he knows she’s not unhappy about it. “I’m not back until late tonight, meet me at the Park Ave place around... ten. Bring food. And wine. Cheese. Ooh,  _ chocolate,  _ yes, the kind with the bits in. And shaving razors. Good ones. Extra blades too. Like… five, six minimum.”

“And this is for… shaving my feet,” Bucky states warily. 

“No, that’s for your legs. I’ve seen the fur you call leg hair and if you want to do it properly it’s all coming off.”

“Ugh, fine.” 

“Bring grapes too. Lots.”

-o-

Bucky mooches over to the Upper East Side at nine forty five, hands full of shopping bags and the cat carrier slung over his shoulder. It’s the soft one, basically a canvas and mesh duffle bag with cheery cartoon pawprints and fishies printed all over it; Liho sits inside like a poisoned needle sits inside a pastry puff. He lets himself in, lets Liho out, sets up the food and wine in the bedroom - Natasha’s got a fucking crazy bed here like only real future swells have, with the backboard being a mirror with a whole wraparound shelf and  _ bookcases  _ on either side - and cues up  _ Impossible Engineering _ on the television. 

Natasha rolls in at ten oh five, dropping bags in a series of heavy thumps on her way from the door. When she arrives at the bedroom she’s barefoot, pantless and already yanking her shirt off. “Close but no cigar,” she says, chucking her shirt at the corner of the room and seeing Bucky’s setup. “Come on, bring this stuff to the ensuite, I’ll get the tub going.”

Bucky ferries the hummus and grapes and chocolate and rice pilaf and wine to the master bathroom, where there’s ample room for it on the massive counters, and only doubles back to pick up Natasha’s discarded shirt and tuck it into the laundry hamper. Natasha’s dumping lavender liquid into the slowly filling tub, which is big enough to fit three, maybe even three and a half Steves sitting shoulder to shoulder. “Are we eating in the tub?” Bucky asks. 

“We’re drinking in the tub,” Natasha corrects. “I am eating right now.” She proceeds to stand over the counter and shovel everything in reach into her mouth like it’s the only way to stop it running off on her. Bucky sighs and joins in. 

By the time the tub fills the food has been decimated, all save for a cheese plate and some grapes that Natasha hoards jealously and brings with them to the edge of the bathtub. Bucky pours wine into the paper cups she produces - “No crystal flutes?” - “I like to minimize the potential for broken glass in my bathtime, thanks” - and they both strip off, sinking into the hot water. 

The tub’s so big it practically qualifies as a swimming pool. “Damn the rich,” Bucky says dreamily. “Who’d you kite this off of?” 

“Nobody, it’s a timeshare,” Natasha replies in similar tones, up to her chin in bubbles. “The owner’s a nice lady who doesn’t much like to leave Miami anymore on account of her arthritis.”

“So where’s the rent coming from.”

“Couple of Swiss accounts lying around,” Natasha says, lazily poking one foot out of the water. “Previous owners don’t need it where they’ve gone.”

“Neck-first onto your knife eight times?”

“Nah, three of them got put away by the Hague on war crimes. Number four had a terrible accident with his speedboat malfunctioning.”

“Tragic,” Bucky agrees drowsily. Natasha slurps her wine. Liho jumps to the edge of the tub, sniffs their hair, their cups, the grapes and the bubble foam. His face scrunches up and he sneezes. It’s the cutest fucking thing Bucky’s ever seen. 

“So what’s the whole pedicure - no baby that’ll give you diarrhea,”  Bucky says, sitting up to cover the plate with his hand as Liho starts sniffing at the cheese. “You don’t want diarrhea. Natashka, eat the cheese if you don’t want to spend the next three days cleaning up cat shit.”

“Well, if you insist,” Natasha mumbles, rousing herself to  _ stuff all the cheese in her mouth like an animal.  _ Bucky really shouldn’t be surprised. “‘Der, all gone,” she says, cheeks bulging like a hamster as she swigs some wine to wash it down. Watching her swallow is like seeing a python choke down a whole antelope. “You belong on Animal Planet,” Bucky murmurs in rapt horror. 

“Apexth pwedator,” Natasha manages, nodding. Liho sniffs at the denuded cheese plate and abandons them, denied. “Wha’ were you saying?”

“Pedicure,” Bucky repeats. “DIY version.”

“Right. Here,” Natasha says, twisting around to rummage in the debris of bath accessories covering the shelf just behind the tub. She ignores the loofahs, brushes and various mysterious bottles to hand him something that looks like a hairbrush if the brush bit had been replaced with a chunk of rough granite. It looks a little like what he sharpens his knives on. “Scrub this over your feet until you get all the dead skin off. No, it doesn’t hurt. Try it.” 

Bucky tries it. It feels very strange, and he has to stop a couple times as the sensation skirts unpleasantness, but eventually he figures out if he keeps his foot underwater while he does it it’s not so bad. It really is just dead skin coming off. “Gross,” he says mildly, inspecting his newly-scrubbed water-shriveled pink foot. 

“We suffer for beauty,” Natasha mumbles, back to gently liquefying amongst the bubbles and slurping wine with her eyes closed. 

Eventually the water cools, and after inspecting his work and deeming it acceptable Natasha stands like a particularly short sea goddess shedding lavender-scented bath foam. 

“Now what?” Bucky says. 

“Now it’s time to shave your legs,” Natasha says. “Or, as I like to think of it, knife-fight yourself in the shower.”

She isn’t fucking wrong. The next thirty minutes are a horror show. Natasha joins in to help when it becomes apparent he’ll be stuck in there all night if left to do it alone. Bucky nicks himself twice, drops the razor countless times and blunts three blades in fifteen minutes as he starts to realize Natasha hadn’t been wrong  _ at all  _ in calling it fur. 

“I think it’s  _ multiplying,”  _ Bucky says desperately, edging away from the  _ piles  _ of goddamn hair circling the drain. “Is this normal? This can’t be normal. I think we’re going to ruin your pipes.”

“I’ll dump a gallon of Drano down there, it’s fine,” Natasha says dismissively, crouched behind him and holding onto his buttcheek for stability as she drags the razor down the back of his thigh. “You’re a hairy bastard, we knew that already. This is why I told you to bring spares.”

“Auugh,” Bucky says mournfully, bent over his other leg and trying to shave the fucking forest around his knee.

They mutually give up in the face of his crotch. “Fuck it,” Bucky says. “We’re on our last razor and I’m not going for fancy underpants anyway. Legs are enough. That’s enough, right? Tell me we did enough.”

“We did enough,” Natasha says, rinsing the razor; it takes a minute in the water stream to make it stop looking like a foamy black bristle brush. “Do this again tomorrow, we definitely missed some - ”

“ - oh god - ”

“ - but it’ll be way easier next time, you won’t nearly have as much hair to do.”

“Like Sisyphus I am doomed to suffer,” Bucky says, staring down at his freshly denuded legs in defeat. 

-o-

It’s a little worth it, though, when the next time he tries on a fresh pair of stockings they slide on smooth as silk. He’s been using the lotion Natasha brandished at him, and he got rid of as much of the missed hairs as possible, and he feels pretty damn accomplished as he pulls them all the way up and flops back on the bed, rubbing his calves together. It feels nice: it’s like his legs are getting hugged all over, a sort of gentle but present squeeze made of soft clingy nylon.

He gets up after a minute and heads for his bathroom’s full-length mirror, naked save for the stockings and underpants. It looks stupid to just have them disappearing up into his boxers, but when he takes the boxers off he looks even stupider, standing there with his dick and balls hanging out like an afterthought. He tries putting his hands on his hips and immediately has to clap his hand over his mouth so as not to spray spit at the mirror in crazed laughter. He considers taking a photo for Steve, but decides against it and also, he’s not sure he could hold still enough to have the photo be anything but a blurry incoherent mess. 

He tugs his boxers back on and sits down on the bed to roll the stockings off, still giggling. Fancy underpants it is, then. 

-o-

Bucky slides in next to Natasha on the couch. “Do they make underpants for men now? The lingerie kind, I mean.” 

“Undoubtedly,” Natasha says. “You need some?”

“Wanna try some,” Bucky admits. “Boxers look stupid.”

Natasha reaches a new high score in Candy Crush. “Are you dressing to impress?”

“Not… really,” Bucky says, because not… really. “I just want to look right.”

“Mm,” Natasha says. Liho uncoils from around her collarbones and promptly slams his ass into Bucky’s lap. Bucky wheezes quietly and pets his head, resigned to spending his near future immobilized in this loveseat. “Here,” Natasha says, momentarily looking away from her candy war to pull a tablet out of the gap between seat cushions. She taps up safari and hands it to him with a site open. “Have at it.”

Bucky takes the tablet. His eyes go pretty wide. 

It’s possible Bucky falls down the rabbit hole a little bit. There are a  _ lot  _ of styles and a  _ lot  _ of patterns and a  _ lot  _ of colors. He doesn’t even notice Liho’s steady colonization of his space, at least not until he realizes he’s practically horizontal on the couch and Liho’s purring heavily on his stomach. Natasha’s gone horizontal on him too, phone in front of her face and feet wedged behind Bucky’s ass. “Okay,” Bucky says. “When do you have time to go shopping?”

-o-

They go shopping. They buy a  _ lot.  _ They realize this necessitates another shaving session. They make mutual despairing eye contact. 

This time they blunt only four razors. Other sundry details of this endeavor are far too horrifying to dwell on. 

-o-

Steve comes home from his mission a couple minutes shy of midnight, dropping his shield on his own foot as he enters the living room and gapes. It makes an  _ oing-oing-oinggg _ noise as it rolls to a stop on the tile. Bucky drops a cheeto on his own chest as he gapes right back. The television continues to play  _ The Addams Family _ , unheeded. Steve regains the power of speech first. “What the hell are you  _ wearing?” _

“What the hell’s on your  _ face?”  _ Bucky demands. 

“I asked first!”

“La Perla For Him 2018 spring collection,  _ your turn.”  _

“It’s a beard, Buck, I know you’ve heard of them.” 

“Doesn’t explain why you  _ have one,”  _ Bucky says, but Steve’s back to staring at his general crotch area. 

“Were you… dressing up for me?” Steve says doubtfully, in the tones of a man ninety-nine percent certain it’s not true but is very much looking for that last cent of confirmation. “I mean. If you were.” 

Bucky considers his own legs. He probably wouldn’t manage sexy even if he didn’t have cheeto dust in his chest hair, because despite his sheer black hiphuggers the orange bathrobe and plaid slippers are instant disqualifiers. He wiggles his toes. “Welcome home?”

“Are those… stockings?” Steve says, finally stepping forward to run a hand up Bucky’s calf. “Wow. Oh, wow, did you shave?”

“The whole kit and caboodle,” Bucky confirms, not bothering to uncross his ankles.

“Jeez,” Steve says, eyebrows shooting up. “Aren’t you worried about rash?”

“There’s creams for that now,” Bucky informs him haughtily, because no one needs to know the week he spent staring down in horror every time he unzipped to take a piss. “Also it’s more like… long stubble now. Really short beard.”

“A really short beard on your dick,” Steve says flatly, mouth twitching. 

“As opposed to a really orange beard on your  _ face,  _ which, unlike my beard, will not be covered in very tasteful undergarments for ninety-nine percent of its existence in the company of other people. What the hell have you got to say for yourself, Rogers.” 

“It was a month long mission and I didn’t have time to shave?” Steve says, raising his eyebrows. “What’s your excuse.”

Bucky shrugs and stuffs some more cheetos in his mouth. “Got bored.”

“Clearly.”

“Me and Natasha had fun.”

“That’s good.”

“Did you and Sam have fun?”

“Not as much as you did.”

Bucky grins and sweeps his arm down his body in a showman’s gesture. “Clearly.”

“I mean, it’s nice,” Steve says. His hand rubs absently at Bucky’s knee. “You definitely don’t look  _ bad.  _ And if it is a sex thing that’s, you know, completely fine - ”

“No, I just like it,” Bucky says. “I mean, it can be a sex thing if you like, but...”

“I don’t think I’m capable of having anything be a sex thing right now,” Steve says, and now that his focus is off the horrible ginger beard Bucky can see that yeah, those are some big-ass circles under his eyes.  

“I can give you a cheeto-flavored handjob,” Bucky offers, wiggling his orange fingers. “Bet that’d wake you right up.” 

“Wow. However could I refuse. The offer of a lifetime,” Steve says, but he’s too tired to properly deliver real sarcasm.

“You know what? I’ll make it again in twelve hours, how about that,” Bucky says, moving from under Steve’s hand to finally lever himself up off the couch. “Just ‘cause I like you. C’mon, let’s go to bed.”

“Missed you,” Steve says, trailing after him and stepping close, sliding his hands in a back-to-front hug under the orange bathrobe.  

“Missed you t -  _ not  with the beard Rogers absolutely  not _ _-_ aaaughhhaagh getoff! Off! You bastard!”

Turns out Steve’s not too tired to chase him into the bedroom. Thank god Bucky’s in slippers. The soles are rubber for maximum traction. 

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all GOTTA check out quietnight's art for this. It's linked right below, do your eyes a favor and go lookin.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bored Housewives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11495439) by [quietnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietnight/pseuds/quietnight)
  * [[Podfic] bored as housewives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12146541) by [quietnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietnight/pseuds/quietnight)




End file.
